Disgruntled London Tory supporters are demanding Leader Tim Hudak's leadership be reviewed in the wake of a byelection loss.

PC Leader Tim Hudak, left, arrives with Doug Holyday at the reception in Etobicoke after Holyday's byelection win last week. That single win, out of five byelections, isn't enough for some Tories, who are unhappy with Hudak's leadership.

Hudak heads into a policy convention next month with a potentially embarrassing attempt to dethrone him hanging over his head.

Ten Progressive Conservatives from London, Ont. submitted a motion Tuesday to the Ontario PC Party asking for the constitution to be amended to allow for a leadership review. Among those who signed is former London-Fanshawe candidate Cheryl Miller, who ran for the Tories in 2011.

The effort to dump the 45-year-old
Hudak
builds on a growing undercurrent of dismay with his leadership since the party’s poor performance in the 2011 provincial vote and after losing Kitchener-Waterloo to the NDP in a byelection last year.

The motion, which is on the heels of Tories losing four out of five
byelections
on Aug. 1 including London West, could be presented at the party convention in London from Sept. 20-22. But a party spokesman dismissed its chances of going anywhere. The party constitution now requires a leadership review only after failing to win a provincial election.

“It’s an internal stunt, a small group of individuals are showing their disappointment in the outcome of the London
byelection
specifically,” Alan Sakach told the Star.

Sakach explained the party’s constitutional committee will determine if the motion even goes to convention. And if its does, a constitutional change like this requires two-thirds delegate support.

“What is disappointing is that these folks are letting their own self-interest get in the way . . . they are really just being patsies in helping the Liberals,” Sakach said, adding that he has not heard of this kind of motion being presented before.

“This is the behaviour that has kept us out of power for three elections.”

When asked the chances of this revolt getting off the ground, Sakach said, “absolutely none.”

There is lingering anger in London that the Hudak Conservatives misread the byelection there, which saw NDP candidate Peggy Sattler win while the Tories finished second.

Tory MPP Vic Fedeli said these same malcontents should be celebrating that the party had a breakthrough in the Liberals' Toronto stronghold by winning the Etobicoke-Lakeshore byelection with outgoing Toronto deputy mayor Doug Holyday and increased the vote percentage in London West and Ottawa South.

“We are the party on a roll and we have great momentum and those 10 individuals should be celebrating our victory, getting behind our leader Tim Hudak and supporting the party, not throwing a gift to the government,” he said.

Others are not so sure that Hudak, who breezed through a review a year ago, is the man to lead the party to victory.

“They say the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. A year and a half ago Hudak faced down his angry membership. He promised he had learned and that he would change. As the losses continue to accumulate it's unclear whether Hudak can convince the members of that again in September,” Nick Kouvalis, former campaign manager and chief of staff to Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, said in a column for Queen’s Park Briefing, a subscription newsletter.

One party insider, who didn’t want to be identified, said the victory in Etobicoke-Lakeshore was “Holyday’s not Hudak’s” and that the party should have captured more seats.

“We had 450 volunteers across the province, so we had a full-court press in play,” the source complained after last week’s byelection.

The source said there should have been more of a “focus” on London West.

Tory MPP Peter Shurman (Thornhill) called the revolt “not much of a story” adding that Hudak’s leadership is “intact.”

In the London West byelection, third place finisher Liberal Ken Coran’s campaign virtually “shut down” days before voting day, which saw votes “bleed” to Sattler, Shurman said.

Veteran MPP Jim Wilson (Simcoe-Grey) said he has seen this backlash before when Tory leaders didn’t win their first time out.

“It happened after John Tory (didn’t win in 2007) and when Mike Harris didn’t become premier the first time around, there was a small pocket of discontent,” Wilson said.

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